On 11 March 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for the crime against humanity of murder.
A few days later, Maria (not her real name) marked the eighth anniversary of her husband’s death. He was one of the tens of thousands of people, mostly from poor and marginalized communities, killed during the Duterte government’s “war on drugs”.
Here, Maria speaks about her continued fight for truth, justice and accountability alongside the families of other victims.
My husband was gunned down in 2017 at a crowded terminal in Caloocan City. He was a jeepney* driver. When I last saw him alive, he was waiting for the jeepney that he was using alternately with another driver. That night, he didn’t come home.
The next morning, I told my children that I needed to look for their father. Later that day, I learned from my husband’s parents that he was killed by two men “riding in tandem”*.
In an instant I lost my husband. The next time I saw him, he was in the morgue. It seemed so simple. Someone waited for him and shot him dead. That’s it.
No sympathy for tokhang victims
There were witnesses, but no one wanted to testify. No one wanted to talk to me. It seemed like they’d kill anyone just for the sake of killing.
I wanted to file a case but all I could think of was that I needed to find work. How could I feed our children or send them to school? How could I pay our rent and other bills? How could we survive?
I needed witnesses, but friends and relatives could not even visit my husband’s wake for fear of being identified and targeted next. That was how things were back then: no one wanted to sympathize with the family of a tokhang* victim.
Children bullied over father’s death
Life has been difficult ever since. My husband was our breadwinner. I didn’t know where to begin, what to do. Even while we were holding my husband’s wake, I had to start working.
My children were bullied at school. It felt so heavy when they would come to me crying and saying, “Mama, other kids told me that Papa was killed because he was a drug addict. Is that true?” How could I answer that?
When filling out school forms and indicating that their father is dead, their teachers would ask, what happened? He was killed; he didn’t die of an illness. Society looks at death differently based on how a person dies. It’s always viewed negatively when you say someone died because they were shot dead, because they were tokhang victims.
Support from church members and lawyers
I became a community organizer of our group Rise Up for Life and for Rights, composed of families of victims of the “war on drugs” supported by church members and lawyers from the NUPL (National Union of People’s Lawyers). Initially, I only wanted to find something else to do other than work, so I started joining their check-in sessions.
When we all felt at ease with each other, we began sharing our stories. There was trust and comfort, knowing that others would listen to your story of how you lost your husband, or your father, or your child.
Sometimes, I’d bring my children to these sessions so they would understand why I had to be away often. I wanted to show them how proud I am of being part of this group. I wanted them to see how I regained my self-confidence.
‘I have no reason to stop’
It was also my personal interest to prove that my husband did nothing wrong, that he didn’t use or sell drugs. I wanted to clear his name.
Eventually, I began asking: why did they have to kill him and many others? What about the families left behind? If they were indeed bad people who violated the law, why did they have to be killed?
My husband was just 34 years old when he was killed. He had so much hope; he wanted to achieve more. He didn’t even get to see his children grow up. I keep telling myself, I have no reason to stay silent. I have no reason to stop.
Duterte’s arrest: This is because of us
I was at work, cooking at a school canteen, when I heard the news. I jumped for joy. I was screaming in the kitchen, “Yes, yes, yes!”. When I got home, I asked my children, did you hear the good news? I told them to open their social media and the TV. Duterte was arrested. I told my children, “See, we can do it if we work together.”
The other families and I were calling each other, and we agreed to come together for a solidarity action. I was so excited to see them. I know he was just arrested, but it felt like we won already.
Friends called to congratulate me on Duterte’s arrest, and I told them this is because of us, because of me. Yes, I claimed credit for it. Because it had been so difficult for us to fight back, to stage protests and speak up in the streets, even when we also have our children and families to take care of.
Requests for interviews started pouring in. At one point, I could no longer say I was happy. I felt drained, especially as Duterte’s arrest made me recall the difficulties I went through before.
I pitied myself, that this is all a gamble. I wanted to say, I want to be a normal person. This isn’t me. I should not be in the streets protesting, nor on the TV granting interviews. I don’t want any of this.
But this is what my circumstances demanded of me. I would often think of the other families. It gave me strength, knowing what we could achieve if we stood together.
Continuing lack of justice and accountability
I want the ICC and the world to know that we are not just numbers; we are real people, real families. We are not just past victims; we continue to be victimized by a lack of truth, justice and accountability. We may be under a new administration now, but we still feel unsafe.
I want Duterte and all others who are responsible to be held accountable. When that happens, we can be proud of ourselves that we were able to do this against the odds. We don’t want to continue living in fear.
We want protection for ourselves and for our families from any reprisal for speaking up. I hope the ICC sides with the truth. Even as we are unable to obtain justice here in our own country, we are grateful for anyone who can give us some hope.
Strength and opportunity to fight back
I hope our country’s policies will really serve to protect us and not target and kill us like the policy on the “war on drugs”. I hope this does not happen again, because what if there were no more people like me, like us, who would collectively work for justice?
At the moment, I feel we have the opportunity and strength to fight back. I will use this to keep telling not just my story but the stories of countless other victims still searching for justice.
The text was translated from Filipino and has been edited for brevity and clarity.
*A jeep or jeepney is a public utility vehicle that is the primary mode of transportation in the Philippines.
*Across the Philippines particularly during the height of the “war on drugs”, masked individuals arrive on motorcycles in groups of two and gun down their targets who allegedly use or sell drugs—a practice known commonly as “riding in tandem.”
*The notorious police operation “Oplan Tokhang” involved door-to-door visits by the police to demand that people suspected of using or selling drugs ‘voluntarily’ surrender to the authorities, stop their drug activities and enter drug rehabilitation and treatment programmes that are in reality a form of arbitrary detention. In practice, however, many faced punitive action and even death.
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